


Tantalus

by Davechicken



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-20
Updated: 2014-11-20
Packaged: 2018-02-26 10:06:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2647988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davechicken/pseuds/Davechicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel visits his friends, but there's something wrong. Something very, very wrong... and he has to work out what.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tantalus

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thekingsparty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thekingsparty/gifts).



Bobby Singer's personal Heaven was predictable, at least to anyone who'd known him for longer than ten minutes. He was back in his scrap yard, and the door was always opening with fresh visitors. Some of them came from their own paradises, some of them were future shadows of deaths yet to come. Occasionally they came with tall tales, or begging help, and Castiel supposed it was a sign of how devoted a Hunter Bobby had been - still was - that his subconscious couldn't _quite_ let go of it.

Rufus, Ellen, Jo. Even John Winchester himself. Mary came, a few times, and sat with him. The two who were noticeable by their absence forever cast their shadows inside the building: Mary and John's two boys, Sam and Dean.

Castiel watched as the sound of their voices outside grew closer, and then drew away. They never quite entered the building which was half-house, half-office. Sometimes he could see them playing ball outside, or lying on their backs in the grass, staring up at the sky. 

The angel wondered why Sam and Dean never spoke to Bobby. Maybe his Heaven had them living forever, and the thought of them ever dying was so abhorrent to him that his mind refused to process it. Humans were strange. Strange and complicated. It was why he'd broken Heaven apart in the first place, to save them.

"You know I can see you, right?" Bobby asked.

That startled Castiel, and he turned to face him. "Most people cannot."

"Most don't know you, though."

That was true, and Castiel had to agree. 

"So, you real, or not?" Bobby asked.

"Why would you ask me that?"

"Like I said. I know you. Reckon you could as like be one of my house guests," he said, knocking a knuckle to his temple, "...as the real deal. Not sure which'n I'd prefer, as you so often herald trouble."

Castiel was not a herald. That was Gabriel, usually, and some of the others. Castiel was a soldier, not a messenger, but he supposed Bobby meant a figurative herald, not a literal one. "I am real."

"Might say that if you weren't."

"That is also true, but I am, nevertheless, real." And then Castiel realised something. "You... would imagine me, in Heaven?"

"You're an angel, ain't ya?"

"I am. But this is your personal Heaven."

"So?" Arms were folded across his chest now, that stubborn set to his lips that Castiel recognised as his 'I will school you' face. 

"I just did not expect that you would want to see me," he replied, even though he knew Bobby's question was more rhetorical than actual. It still warranted his response. 

"When you save the world together as often as we did... let's just say you're family, and you come over here and say what's on your mind."

"There is nothing 'on my mind'," Castiel protested. "I simply wished to... check that you were doing well."

"Uh-huh. In Heaven."

It was, of course, an idiotic sentiment, now. Heaven was more or less righted, and there were less political shenanigans to deal with. Heaven was - for the most part - safe.

"Yes." He said it as stone-faced as he could. And for a moment they were stuck: the angel who didn't get 'social skills' and the Hunter who didn't give a damn.

And then Bobby laughed. It was a short, sharp bark of a laugh, and Cas found his own lips quirking in response. 

"Reckon you're gonna tell me why you're really here?" Bobby pushed again.

"To make sure you are doing well," Castiel repeated. And - when Bobby looked about ready to roll his eyes again - he cut him off. "You are... not."

"Oh? How so?" 

Bobby's voice was dangerously sharp then. Not rude, but the kind of brittle that you knew was hiding deep emotion. The kind of rough that didn't want to show the hand dealt to you, because it was a bluff. You had a pair, and would more likely win the lottery than the game you were playing, the figures you had on the other cards.

"There's something in your eyes," Cas told him. "You... you're sad."

Bobby huffed then, his cheeks puffing out. One hand nervously reached up and tugged at the brim of his cap, righting it again. "Can't say as I'm over the moon about being dead and all, but it ain't that bad."

"I want to help you."

"Ain't no help I need, son, but I'm glad you're thinking of me. Maybe you should go make sure those boys of mine aren't up to no good."

Which was a dismissal. He knew that. He knew he was being brushed off, and he nodded, all the same.

He wanted to say 'take care', but he didn't.

***

"Out with it, Kitten."

Castiel counted to a number larger than ten. Rapidly. It did not calm him, the way humans claimed it should. "Out with what, Crowley?"

"Whatever's got your proverbial."

His proverbial 'what' was the question, but as it was a proverb, and those were figures of speech, it didn't really need a literal explanation, and as such he could deduce the meaning without asking.

"Nothing."

"Sweetheart, I've seen you face down the Apocalypse with less lemons in your mouth than currently reside there. Right now you are a veritable arboretum. An orchard, shall we say. Much more and you'll turn Sicilian."

Castiel was about to say something, but in doing so, he must have made more of a face than previously was the case, because Crowley went 'Ah!' and clapped his hands together. 

"I am... concerned for a third party."

"I see."

"It is... delicate."

The demon king of Hell trailed around the Men of Letters' bunker, his hands spider-dancing over books, over tables, over chairs and over air. It was as if he thought he could rub his scent into things, to claim them as his. Castiel watched the show. He wondered if Crowley would still do it if Sam and Dean were in the room, but then he realised that Crowley would likely do it _more_ then.

"What's wrong, you worried I'll do a hard cycle over your silk panties, Cas? Come on. We're practically _family_ by now. We went from strangers to backstabbing... and we all know you only hurt the ones you love, right?"

That was a ridiculous fiction. He wondered if Crowley would ever get over the whole 'steal all the souls of Purgatory' thing. 

But then... it was Crowley. Never quite enemy, even when he had his hand in your guts. It was complicated, and this was something he could never broach with Sam or Dean.

"It's Heaven."

"Always is, with your lot."

Castiel ignored the jibe. "I'm concerned that... I'm concerned that perhaps some of the residents are not... wholly at peace." It was tantamount to blasphemy, but then Castiel had declared himself God once, so this was - in comparison - a misdemeanour.

"That is - oh, Cas. I'm speechless. Truly. I never expected you to say _that_. The great big Quilting Club in the sky is going through a rough patch? What's wrong, someone forget to pay the cable bill? The triangle sandwiches not got enough cress in?"

Castiel bristled, annoyed by the flippancy. "No. You wouldn't understand, Crowley."

"No, I suppose I wouldn't."

***

But he couldn't stop worrying about it, and the more he thought about it, the worse it got. He started to avoid Bobby, even though he was sure Bobby could see him. He skulked around the edges of his psyche, observing.

He'd stand in the garden and watch the brothers play. Even out here, their images were fuzzy and ill-defined. It was as if Bobby couldn't bring himself to solidify their appearances, couldn't come to terms with the inevitable mortality of his adoptive sons. They were the ghosts of the future dead, and Castiel was obsessed.

***

"Not still bee-watching, are you?" the demon asked. They were about to embark on yet another plan to keep the world spinning. They seemed to need one every year, like clockwork. Castiel wondered if halting the Apocalypse merely got the record stuck on repeat. The needle would lift, go back, and slide towards the inevitable end once more.

"No."

"I've been thinking about what you said."

"I see."

"Now, I wondered if it was possible you were watching a masochist? Because a masochist takes pleasure in pain - naturally - and so what you might consider to be unpleasant would actually be _pleasant_ , paradoxical as it might sound. Imagine the paradise of such a twisted soul!"

Castiel considered the proposal for a while. Was Bobby a masochist? Did he want to suffer? He wasn't convinced. If anything, Sam and Dean would be more interested in the emotional self-torture. He actually dreaded seeing their afterlives, because he had come to know them well. Sam might settle with a dog and a book, Dean... Dean would likely just keep re-living his glory days, over and over. Pain and all.

He was not supposed to judge.

"That would be one explanation, yes," Castiel agreed at length. "But I do not think in this particular case that it is the correct one."

"Right." The demon's lips were thin, the word curt and snapped out. Did he not like being corrected? 

"But it was a good suggestion."

"Of course it was."

***

The world was saved. Over and over and over. It seemed to like the repeated peril, and Castiel watched as the rifts in Heaven healed over, one at a time. Sam and Dean got old. The Impala got old. Castiel did not.

They went out, in the end. They had a good running, but eventually the creeping inevitability of Death visited the last of the Winchester line. Castiel was grieved, and also... not. It was right that they ended, because that was how the world worked. A brief, bright spark of choice and thought and feeling, a cacophony of occurrences, the essential chaos of life punctuated by the perfect counterpoint of death. 

Their personal paradises were much better than he'd feared. They even visited Bobby, and the shifting glass-panel pastel ghosts turned to sharp relief. The muted voices in the hallway into raucous laughter and reminiscing.

But still, that sadness.

He wanted to ask him why, but he couldn't pluck up the courage. Every time he wanted to, he saw the slump of Bobby's shoulders and the worry that he couldn't lift them up plagued him. 

It was awful.

***

"You know, it might just be me, but with those two brothers gone - touch wood - the world seems to be less... fragile?"

Cas couldn't help but smile at that observation. "I was thinking similarly."

"Now, I'm not going to put the cart before the horse, or a straw man in my mouth, but that... could be taken as indicating that your two pet humans were _trouble_."

"There is no denying that fact." He was proud of it, too.

Crowley lifted his glass of amber intoxicant in salute. "To the Winchesters."

The angel nodded in return. He had no real reason to be here, but... Crowley had become something of a... friend. Over the years. Almost like family. And now the brothers were enjoying their well-earned peace, Castiel found that friends were in short supply. He mourned Balthazar, Hannah, Samandriel, Gabriel... Hell, even Meg. 

"I've been thinking about your quandary again," Crowley said, after a very, very long pause. He brought it up at irregular intervals, still. Castiel wasn't sure what the fixation was with it. Was it just that he didn't like losing? He didn't like seeing a problem he couldn't fix? Or because he liked to gloat that Heaven wasn't as perfect as Castiel had once believed?

"I see."

"What if... what if the reason your 'friend' is unhappy, is that whatever he or she wants... he or she cannot get?"

"I do not understand."

"It's simple. Tantalus: If they want to be happy, then Heaven would make them happy... unless Heaven can't. So, it stands to reason that there's something they require that... the Lord Almighty did not factor in to his calculations." A finger went up into the air. "I know you're going to give me the whole 'God is omnipotent and omniscient' spiel, but clearly _something _has gone wrong. Perhaps he did make plans, but after he left... things changed?"__

__That made far too much sense. Castiel considered it at some length. "But what could be forbidden to Heaven?" he asked. "What could be impossible?"_ _

__"There's the question," the demon said, pouring himself another drink, "...that you need to answer next." He wasn't smiling, though, and Castiel wondered why he wasn't more pleased with his own cleverness._ _

__...but then he realised. He realised that Crowley had known all along, and he didn't think it could be fixed._ _

__"Crowley."_ _

__"Hmm?"_ _

__"Can demons go to Heaven?"_ _

__Crowley swirled his drink around several times. They sat in silence. It was... uncomfortable._ _

__***_ _

__Now that he saw it, he saw the sense of it. He saw that the demon's cry for help in the church ('I deserve to be loved!') was a direct one, not a baseless yearning. He saw the trapping of a certain soul in his domain as more than just petty-mindedness. He saw... he saw that there was love, there. Warped, maybe. Twisted, difficult and - in places - downright ugly... but love all the same._ _

__He went to Heaven, and he found Bobby alone._ _

__"Been a while."_ _

__"I've been... thinking."_ _

__"Yeah. Well. Nice to see you. You staying, or this a flying visit?"_ _

__"Why didn't you tell me?"_ _

__"Tell you what?"_ _

__"That you were in love with Crowley?"_ _

__Bobby's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly, his wide nostrils flaring around breath he didn't need._ _

__"It is alright," he consoled him._ _

__"Reckon I ain't," he rebutted._ _

__"Then why are you lonely?" Castiel asked. "You know he's a demon. You know he can't be in Heaven. You know that if he's here, then it's a fiction. And that's why you're depressed."_ _

__"Don't know what you're talking about."_ _

__"Robert Steven Singer - you're a dirty, no-good, rotten liar."_ _

__Cas was gratified by the sudden whirl as Bobby turned to face the... not-quite demon who appeared behind him._ _

__"What in the--?"_ _

__"It's really him," Cas said._ _

__"You let a _demon_ into **Heaven**?!"_ _

__"It's a bit more complicated than that, you old bat," Crowley said, closing the distance between them. He reached up and cupped his whiskered face gently, pulling him down into a kiss even as he arched up onto the balls of his feet._ _

__Castiel watched them for a moment, admiringly. Bobby's hands clenched and unclenched, his body clearly fighting the worry that _this wasn't real_. Then he grabbed hold of Crowley's tie with one hand, and the other went to the small of his back, pulling him in close. _ _

__Confident that they would be okay now, Castiel nodded to no one in particular and flew back to Earth. Crowley's meatsuit was lying supine on the bed, the smoke of his broken soul currently elsewhere. He sat over it, guarding it, waiting for his friend to come back._ _

__And while he waited, he read. He knew how the stories went, but still it was nice to experience them properly. Slowly. The way their creators intended. He flicked the page over, and continued._ _


End file.
